Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Tue Jun 4th Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Robert Tram and 'Mattie Gir. Born on the same day, across the years. You won't believe what happened on your day. In 1855, Major Henry C. Wayne departed New York aboard the USS Supply to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps. In 1913, Emily Davison, an activist for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, was fatally injured when she was trampled by King George V's horse at the Epsom Derby. In 1920, The Kingdom of Hungary lost 72% of its territory and 64% of its population with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon in Paris. In 1944, A United States Navy task group captured German submarine U-505, which survives today as a museum ship at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. In 1996, The maiden flight of the Ariane 5 failed, with the rocket self-destructing 37 seconds after launch because of a malfunction in the control software—one of the most expensive computer bugs in history. I guess the moral is that Bill Clinton had the wrong software, and royally backed the wrong horse in WW1, offending women, while looking for salvation in great depths with a camel. I'm not much with morals, but hope you have an awesome day.
===

Piers Akerman – Tuesday,June 04,2013 (12:45am)

THE Gillard minority government’s slash and burn policy as it moves toward the election is going to devastate the nation for years to come.

Having politicised the Treasury to an obscene degree, it has ensured that other agencies are just as compliant to its political goals.

Yesterday it was revealed that the board of the CSIRO sent a text message to opposition science spokeswoman Sophie Mirabella to let her know the institution’s boss had been reappointed for an extra year.

The move was a “politeness”, Science Minister Don Farrell told a Senate committee.

CSIRO yesterday announced its chief executive Megan Clark would stay in her role for an extra year, until the end of 2014, while an international search for her successor took place.

That reappointment was a decision for the CSIRO board but was approved by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the cabinet, the estimates hearing was told.

Senator Farrell said the CSIRO board chairman, Simon McKeon, had tried to contact Ms Mirabella on Thursday and Friday last week to inform her of the decision.

Mr McKeon told Ms Mirabella’s office he had an important issue to discuss with her.

When he was unable to talk to her, he sent a text message directly to the Liberal MP, also stating he needed to discuss an important issue.

In April, Tony Abbott said he was concerned the Labor government was trying to appoint a number of key positions before September’s poll in a bid to reach out from “beyond the political grave”.

But Senator Farrell said that Mr Abbott wasn’t prime minister at the moment and his view about appointments was not relevant in this case.

“It is, given the term wasn’t due to expire until after the next election,” opposition parliamentary secretary for science Richard Colbeck replied.

“We made a polite request asking you not to make any appointments.”

Senator Farrell replied: “We politely declined.”

“I’d hardly call that polite, minister,” Senator Colbeck shot back.

Senator Colbeck is correct.

Later, Ms Mirabella said that contrary to evidence to the hearing, it was not Mr McKeon who tried to contact her office but a female bureaucrat.

She said the text message she received on Friday said Mr McKeon wanted to speak with her briefly about a CSIRO issue that could be of interest.
Ms Mirabella got another text message informing her about the appointment yesterday, about 40 minutes before Dr Clark informed CSIRO staff.

“There was no urgency in the text sent by Mr McKeon on Friday,” Ms Mirabella said.

“It’s a bit cute and somewhat curious that they waited until the 11th hour to raise the issue.”

Not really.

The CSIRO is on a hiding to nothing over its defence of the government’s global warming scare campaign.

It has gone out of its way to promote those who support the nonsense and it has stifled those scientists who don’t think science supports the humbug.

Global warming science took another knock yesterday with The Australian reporting that banned aerosols were probably to blame for temperature increases since the 1970s – not carbon dioxide.

So much for the useless carbon tax.

Expect more of government department’s to try and fight the inevitable as the election approaches.

Labor has long held the public servants captive and they are now fighting for their sinecures.

Miranda Devine – Saturday,June 01,2013 (10:35pm)

EDDIE McGuire claimed his racist King Kong outrage on radio last week was a slip of the tongue, an aberration in an impeccable public life of service to others and the pursuit of equality.

In defence of McGuire, I note Miranda’s assertion regarding Sydney is tenuous. McGuire is smart and articulate but clearly not in Devine’s class. But that doesn’t mean he is a fool. A lot of those who left 9 did so not because Eddie didn’t like them, but because 9 had overspent on talent previously. 9’s current failings are more closely related to abysmal programming. They have consistently failed to find good programs since they stole Babylon 5 from 7.

McGuire is a buffoon. But a capable one. I’d be happy for him to MC my wedding. It is a particular personality type that is good at public speaking in a relaxed atmosphere. He doesn’t have the precision to compere Ready, Steady Cook .. but that is because of experience .. he doesn’t have to. - ed

Were this sentiment to be reflected electorate-wide, Labor would be reduced to around 38 seats in the next parliament. Labor is also losing Victoria:

Julia Gillard’s home state has abandoned her with as many as six seats in Victoria now at risk of falling to the Coalition, including that of her Attorney General Mark Dreyfus …

An exclusive JWS/Herald Sun poll reveals a 15.4 per cent swing against Mr Dreyfus in the once-safe seat of Isaacs, enough to remove him. If repeated in neighbouring seats, the PM’s hopes of retaining the furniture in her home state could be dashed.

Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan looks set to lose his Brisbane seat of Lilley, with internal polling suggesting Labor will struggle to retain any Queensland seats at the September 14 federal election.

In a result even worse than the 1996 ‘’baseball bats’’ election, when Labor was reduced to two of the then 26 seats in Queensland, Labor may retain only one MP – former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,June 04,2013 (2:29am)

It’s going to be a tough year for election campaign slogans. Labor’s most famous slogan – “It’s Time”, from 1972 – just wouldn’t work in 2013. Today, in reference to Labor, it suggests a priest’s doleful final words to a death row prisoner.

Bless them, for still they hope. The Labor government has been chanting “cut to the bone” ever since the budget, attempting to make something of the fearful reductions in services we can expect under an austere Tony Abbott regime.

This is in contrast to the slogan wheeled out online by Labor last June, when the government was still telling everybody that a surplus was on the way. “Cash for you” promoted Labor’s Schoolkids Bonus program. Or maybe it was a late-night ad for pawn shop hucksters.

Considering the current Labor cabinet, it’s difficult to pick the difference. Probably the hucksters are turning a profit.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,June 04,2013 (2:01am)

At the behest of dairy manufacturers, margarine was banned outright in Canada from 1886 to 1948. Indeed, in the same period when Americans were getting bootleg liquor smuggled in from Canada, Canadians were getting bootleg margarine smuggled in from Newfoundland, not yet part of the Dominion of Canada. It’s not often I get the chance to type the phrase “bootleg margarine”, so I just thought I’d throw that in …

Provincial strictures on margarine remained for decades. Quebec’s ban on colorized margarine was not repealed until 2008 … I am no fan of state coercion in matters of butter-substitute coloration, but I confess to a slight pang of regret when the Quebec yellow margarine ban was overturned.

Latest news from the lawful north: a Toronto Star reporter was arrested, put in headlock, handcuffed and charged with trespassing for taking pictures of an injured railway officer: “News photographers are not allowed to take photoswithout permission at Union Station.”

In one blow, NBN turns from a Labor boast into a Labor embarrassment to match the pink batts disaster:

LABOR is fighting off new safety fears over its National Broadband Network as
more cases of asbestos exposure during its construction fuel a growing
political brawl over the management and cost of the $37.4 billion
project.
The health risks spread to all mainland states yesterday after the
Queensland safety regulator revealed three new incidents and federal
authority Comcare warned of an “alarming” spate of asbestos safety
breaches by contractors.
While Labor sought to blame Telstra for the failures, the Coalition
declared the government and its agency, NBN Co, bore ultimate
responsibility for managing the risk to public health.
An emergency meeting in Canberra yesterday confirmed the scale of the
problem as NBN contractors rebuild many of the eight million pits on the
Telstra network, of which 10 to 20 per cent contain asbestos.

The Gillard Government insists it is in no way responsible.
Trouble is, what it says is contradicted by what it has done - calling
meetings with Telstra and the NBN, demanding assurances and holding
press conferences. The public will conclude that if the Government can
act now, it could also have acted sooner. And indeed it could:

[Workplace Relations Minister Bill] Shorten was
yesterday challenged in parliament over three letters he wrote to
Telstra showing he was aware of the asbestos risks in 2009. Mr Shorten
asked Telstra in his 2009 letters to consider removing all its asbestos.
Mr Thodey responded in December 2009 by saying a pro-active program to
remove it was not justified at that point because of the cost, the risk
of disturbing the material and the looming rollout of the NBN.

But here’s what puzzles me. In the huge media storm, I’ve seen almost no
attempt to measure the actual risk involved. Several licensed asbestos
removers and people who’d once handled the stuff rang me on 2GB last
night to claim the health scare was a huge beat-up. Hear them give their reasons here.
I don’t know one way or the other, but I do know it’s a beat up Labor
would not dare call out for fear of seeming heartless, and one the
Liberals would not play down given the opportunity to damage the
Government. And the media has always liked a good environmental scare.
UPDATE
Not a very convincing performance by Shorten in Parliament yesterday. Again I note his unfortunate habit of snarking when he’s under most pressure to simply answer the damn question.
UPDATE
I suspect a lot of vested interests in whipping up needless panic - vested interests in politics and the media:

Professor Bruce Armstrong is a public health
specialist, who’s been investigating asbestos related disease for
decades and he says that in this instance, the dangers of asbestos contamination have been exaggerated.
Professor Armstrong told Eliza Harvey that he blames politicians and
asbestos groups for failing to ease the concerns of affected residents.
ELIZA HARVEY: What do you see is the risk associated with the asbestos that we find bound within these concrete fibres?
BRUCE ARMSTRONG: It’s very low. Provided it remains bound in the asbestos cement form then the risk from it is negligible.
ELIZA HARVEY: So therefore how should we be discussing this risk in
light of this week’s debate about the dangers of excavating the pits?
BRUCE ARMSTRONG: The hazard that was generated, to the extent that I
know anything about exactly what happened, would have been to the
workers knocking the asbestos around and not to people living nearby.
Those fibres, to the extent that they were present around the workers
would be very rapidly diluted in a large volume of air and the
probability that anyone else is exposed is going to be very low.

Funny, how Feeney is now arguing against the identity politics he once
championed, saying performance should count for more than gender - at
least in his case:

Senator Feeney said the seat should not become the litmus test for the
ALP’s affirmative-action rules. He said preselectors should instead
consider his own abilities ...

Why shouldn’t all male candidates get the treatment Feeney demands for himself - to be judged on performance, not penis?
UPDATE
But let’s not make Feeney too much the victim of identity politics. It’s not as if his candidacy is all about abilities:

In a lengthy political career, Feeney’s backing of Gillard has been his biggest, and worst, call.
But before the electoral axe falls on Labor, one of Gillard’s last
political favours has been to offer her backing for Feeney to win
preselection in the northern Melbourne electorate of Batman, at nearly
25 per cent the nation’s safest....
He survives because he backed Gillard in 2010.
No more, no less.

UPDATE
A far more sinister form of identity politics is urged by Guy Rundle, the Fukushima hysteric and correspondent for the far-Left Crikey. From his letter to Labor today (no link):

Please, in arrogantly concluding that the seat is ALP
personal property, ignore the most important lesson of US politics—that
you fit the candidate to the district, and allow the candidate to adopt
the district’s values. Please instead, impose one of Parliament’s most
fervent Zionist-shills on a multicultural electorate with a large Middle
Eastern presence.

Seriously? Labor should not appoint any pro-Israel politicians in seats
with lots of Muslim voters? Could Guy tell us if Jews are allowed to
stand in such electorates?
This country is heading down a dangerous path when such politics are not just urged - but, alas, now practised by Labor.

Can she confirm media reports that Bob Carr asked her to step down for the good of the party?

Gillard:

Reports are “entirely untrue”.

Remember when Carr denied plotting against Gillard - a claim Canberra journalists treated as a complete lie? Not sure this latest claim is true, but am sure Carr’s previous denials were not.
UPDATE
Another rumor of the Gillard Government looking after its mates - while stacking the judiciary. A political insider writes:

For what it is worth there is a rumour circulating
around the Victorian Bar that the government is going to appoint Nicola
Roxon to the Federal Court.

I discussed in an
earlier post today the habit of Workplace Minister Bill Shorten to
resort to snark and sanctimony when under pressure just to answer a
question.
His responses to heavy questioning of his handling of the asbestos risk
of the NBN rollout has badly exposed his weakness. Shorten, if he has
leadership pretentions, needs a serious course on how to seem humble and
less sanctimonious. No wonder Labor polling suggests there is a huge
swing against him in his own seat.
I raise this again having listened to his performance in Question Time today.
The normally urbane Opposition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull was thrown
out of Parliament for an excellent jibe, asking the Speaker to remind
Shorten mid-bluster he was “not in a North Carlton pie shop”.
Shorten then continued struggled badly under precise questioning over
what steps he took, after being alerted in 2009 to the asbestos hazard
in the Telstra pits, to warn the Government of the risks involved in the
NBN roll out.
He was warned by the Speaker against abusing the Opposition, rathern
than answering it, before Abbott asked him again what he did to warn
the Government of the asbestos risk in disturbing millions of Telstra
pits in the NBN roll out. Could he also confirm he did nothing?
In two goes at the questions, Shorten gave not one direct answer,
resorting again to abuse. The Speaker asked him to withdraw the word
“hypocrite”.
I don’t think Shorten realises that most people listening to him shout and snark think they are listening to a phony.
UPDATE
In his press conference yesterday, Shorten gave a typical example - five times - of the kind of sanctimony and hypocrisy that sets my teeth on edge.

BILL SHORTEN: There are people who have not yet been exposed that if we
don’t prevent their exposure, will die. More people will die from
asbestos in Australia than died in the fields of Flanders in World War
I. [Really?] This is not acceptable and we do need to tackle it and we need to do it not in a partisan way but
in a way which goes towards actually dealing with the scourge of
asbestos. But you do have to say we’re happy to look at the track record
of our Opposition when they were in government, what they did on
asbestos.

Let’s not play politics with this awful issue. But how about that rotten Opposition?

I tell you what, I didn’t trip over any Federal
Liberal MPs when I went out to Penrith on Saturday. The residents
didn’t say they’d been inundated with calls from the front bench of the
Opposition to see how they’re going. And whilst one shouldn’t point score,
a search of Hansard in the last nine years shows that the Opposition
Communications Minister has not mentioned the word asbestos until last
Thursday.

Let’s not play politics with this awful issue. But how about this heartless Opposition?

Does anyone here seriously think that the Opposition
would be tackling the issue of asbestos in the way they tried to if it
wasn’t for NBN Co and the politics of that? Let’s call it for what it
is in Australia, the rubbish has to stop. What worries me is people in
Penrith have been exposed. What worries me is a thirty-two-year old
cable layer could spot problems with contractors and yet he’s got his
eleven week old son potentially exposed. What worries me is that his
aunt, a very good woman, Catherine, her husband died of asbestos, of
mesothelioma. Now we’ve got the Liberals carrying on about who knew what
when… I think it is important that the Opposition try to resist the temptation to play politics about health and safety ...

Let’s not play politics with this awful issue. But how about these Opposition vultures?

But by the same token, this is a subtle issue, because frankly, if
you’ve had a pit remediated in your street, or my street, and your kids
or my kids might have been exposed, nothing less than all the details is
acceptable. And of course, what struck me about these residents in
Penrith, when I met them on Saturday, is they just don’t want other
people to go through this tension. You know, we get all the politics of
the issues and the Libs trying to score points for whatever reasons and
what have you. For me, it is not about Liberal or Labor, this issue.
For me, this issue is about Matthew O’Farrell, I think his name is -
in Penrith. Got a beautiful young child - two children, his wife.

Let’s not play politics with this awful issue. But why can’t this
vicious Opposition be more like noble me, weeping tears of compassion
for people whose names I got staff to jot down for this moment?

What the Government will do is we will work with
Telstra, we will work with everyone in the chain of communications who
has a duty of care, we will make sure that asbestos exposure does not
occur. We will have our Comcare inspectors and we will work with state
regulators. We will work with the Opposition when they’re so minded to
work with us on this. This issue is above politics. I
just feel particularly motivated when I think about this thirty-two year
old chap, living in a street in Penrith, who’s not sure if as a parent
he’s failed his kids because somehow a possible exposure may have taken
place. That is what I keep in my mind when I answer all your questions
Michelle.

BILL SHORTEN: What is it about asbestos that you
think is the need pollute with your political palaver?… The first point I
want to make in coming to the answer of the Member’s question is this: asbestos should not be a political football… And I met with a family, I met with a family whose 11-week-old child may have been exposed to asbestos.

The same hyocrisy six times in the one day. The same fake emotion, the same confected outrage.
If Shorten wishes to ever become Prime Minister, nothing will help him
more than a careful study of this post - and of his own words within it.
Those words do not seem sincere, Bill. Indeed, I believe they are not
sincere. Just when you think you are responding with strength, you are
digging your grave.
You can deny it all you will. But while you deny it, you will never succeed.

Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, a Rudd supporter who knew long ago Julia
Gillard was hopeless, can only laugh at the polls and the Labor spin.
UPDATE
ABC AM’s political correspondent struggled on this morning,
after Newspoll showed Labor’s preferred vote sinking from a 44-56 split
to a catastrophic 42-58:

Well we’re seeing there’s no great change in Newspoll.
The two party preferred vote is pretty much the same but the Prime
Minister’s own personal approval ranking has taken a bit of a hit there.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has come under fire
from one of her strongest Caucus supporters, the western Sydney MP
Laurie Ferguson, who has told her she needs to sell the Government’s
message better otherwise “we are dead”, the ABC understands.
It is believed that Mr Ferguson, the Labor MP for the seat of Werriwa,
challenged Ms Gillard in today’s Caucus meeting about the issue of
asylum seekers, telling her “we are dead” in reference to crucial seats
in western Sydney.

Marie Angrilli is the 64-year-old face of the union movement’s push to raise the minimum wage. Year after year.
In 2007, The Age described her life as “Dickensian”; in 2008, the
part-time cleaner told SBS TV’s Insight that rising cost-of-living
pressures meant “everything’s more expensive”; in 2011, she complained
to the Herald-Sun the annual minimum wage rise was “not enough” and in
2012 she told Bloom­berg that people in her industry were “underpaid and
we need to band together for better rights”.
What wasn’t reported is that Ms Angrilli is the unpaid Victorian
president of the United Voice union, which recently boasted that its
members are “among the best-paid cleaners in the country”.
Following the Fair Work Commission’s self-described “modest” 2.6?per
cent pay rise on Monday, which directly affects 1.5?million employees,
Ms Angrilli was presented by ACTU national secretary Dave Oliver as an
example of a minimum-wage worker.
The latest rise, which will push minimum weekly wages up to $622.20, or
about $32,300 a year – the highest in the world in current exchange
rates – was a “kick in the guts for low-paid workers”, she said.
But is her life Dickensian?
“I don’t know if I would say it was Dickensian; I think our wages have
gone up since the 1830s but it is still very difficult to live on the
minimum wage,’’ Ms Angrilli later said in an interview.
Ms Angrilli is not well paid. She takes home $463.85 a week and without
the help of her son, who lives at home, she would struggle to pay the
bills. But she owns her home in the Melbourne suburb of Diamond Creek
because of an inheritance and drives to work every day for the 3.30am
starts.

Racism? We don’t get it, because there are no consequences for being an ignorant, smug arsehole in this country.
Had Eddie McGuire made his King Kong remark on US radio, he would not
work in the American mainstream media again. Game over, Ed. Buy a yacht.
If NSW State of Origin NRL assistant coach Andrew Johns had called an
opponent on another team “a black c---” in American sport, he’d first
have been knocked out by the closest black player and may now, possibly,
be coaching some high school team in Alabama while nursing a
prescription drug addiction.
If a 13-year-old white girl called LeBron James an “ape” at an NBA game,
not only she, but her entire entourage, would have had to have been
escorted from the arena FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY. I guarantee there would
have been a 13-year-old black girl so in her face, whitey could sketch
her from memory…
We do not understand the anger, the shame, the frustration, the
bitterness and sorrow of what was taken from indigenous Australians.
We can’t even be honest enough to call it “slavery”: like black folks
just loved the idea of working on cattle stations seven days a week so
they could get some beans and flour and see their daughters raped on
weekends.
We said “sorry”, but for what? Crippling your culture? Raping your women? Murdering your children?…
You make a King Kong statement like Eddie McGuire did in that studio,
you’ve got 25 people in the newsroom who are gonna press you against the
lift doors and tell you why you’re a maggot and you need to LEARN.
FAST.
I’m not suggesting violence is the best response to racism - whether
that racism is casual, unintentional or sharpened to puncture hearts
like so much of the muck we read from white apologist news commentators.
I’m saying we need to get real about punishing it.

This does not sound the voice of compassion, humanity and
reconciliation. It certainly does not sound the voice of someone who
judges people not by the colour of their skin but the content of their
character.
UPDATE
Reader Blair neatly skewers the racist construct of de Brito’s rant:

”We said “sorry”, but for what? Crippling your culture? Raping
your women? Murdering your children?…” I was born in 1946; have murdered
no indigenous children, raped no indigenous women and crippled no
indigenous culture. So whom are you talking about? The de Brito family?

Reader Steve:

Sam has revealed a clear unconscious prejudice in that column. Basically
his argument shows that he sees African Americans as a people who can
only respond with violence, rather than reason, argument or intellect.
He has conferred this trait on an entire race, which is textbook racism.

UPDATE
Sam de Brito raises an interesting point. Is it actually possible to take a tweet out of context?

If the tweets - and the rant I quoted - were indeed “out of context”,
can someone please explain what context was overlooked to justify such
language, such hatred, such stereotyping, such legitimising of violence?

It is too dangerous for me to comment in detail, being white and conservative, but I could not agree more:

ABORIGINAL
culture is being “fetishised” and indigenous women, particularly the
young, are lambs on the “altar of culture sacrificed to assuage white
guilt” according to Aboriginal woman Bess Price and her husband, Dave Price, in a new book.
The pair argue that southern indigenous and non-indigenous people have
no understanding of the experience of Aborigines in remote Australia.
Ms Price, the Northern Territory Country Liberals member for the seat of
Stuart, and her husband ... argue that key parts of traditional
culture need to be “discarded” if there is to be hope for the future of
remote community residents…
And in comments that will offend scores of indigenous
people—particularly in Sydney and Melbourne—they argue that the majority
of Australians who identify as indigenous speak English, live in
suburbs, and have children with Australians who do not identify as
indigenous.
“Many of them do quite well in the mainstream economy and society,
supplying indigenous Australia with its middle class and the majority of
its spokespeople.
“They are regularly asked by journalists to define the ‘indigenous view’
on any issue. Unless they have studied anthropology and linguistics,
their understanding of traditional law and culture will come from the
half-remembered musings of aged relatives, themselves several
generations removed from the traditional life,” they assert.
Asked who they were specifically writing about, Mr Price said the “term
would certainly include Larissa (Behrendt), Tiga Bayles, Barb Shaw, and
many, many others”.

Bess and Dave’s essay is published in In black and white: Australians all at the crossroads. Order here.
POSTSCRIPT
Note those deadly words: “in comments that will offend scores of indigenous people—particularly in Sydney and Melbourne...”
Such are our laws that to offend indigenous people on the basis of race
is actually grounds for legal action under the Racial Discrimination
Act - an obscene restriction on free speech. Bess Price will be betting
that those she offends will not risk making that law look even more
stupid by trying to shut up someone blacker than them.
UPDATE

With Labor now at 42 per cent to the Coalition’s 58 in Newspoll,
Labor MPs must ask how they for three years let the utterly inept
Julia Gillard lead them to this utterly predictable disaster, with the
party about to be destroyed and its reputation trashed.
Did they let machine men hijack a party they’d rather control in defeat than lose power over in victory?
Did they believe too readily in the cheer squad of the Canberra press
gallery, urging them on in their carbon tax folly and politics of hate?
Did they let the party by overrun by New Labor lawyers, who could
execute a brief but never write one? Who had a magisterial contempt for
the very people they purported to represent?
Did they fall for the foolishness of the identity politics of the New
Racists and dated feminists, and seek to divide Australians into
warring tribes - to the dismay of voters who instead prefer to look for
what unites us?
Did they fall for the old failing of the Left - that love of seeming
above doing, of myth above substance? Did they let themselves get
carried away by the collectivist mirages of the global warming crusade,
the class war, the New Racism?
I said this disaster was predictable because I did predict it. Here is some of a column I write in March 2011, more than two years ago:

JULIA Gillard is finished. It seems she’s lied too brazenly and nothing in her erratic performance suggests she can recover…
Clearly, many voters are livid that Gillard will now impose the “carbon
tax” that she promised just before the election she wouldn’t…
Some Labor supporters may still hope Gillard’s tax will at least, as
Channel 9’s Laurie Oakes put it, give her finally “something to fight
for. A cause.”
But what makes them think she’d be any good at this fighting?
Didn’t she lose the election debates? Is it really likely, with Abbott
rampant, that she can now win an argument over this painful tax that she
claims will somehow help stop global warming?
Dream on. You are talking about a leader with such disastrous political
judgment that she decided a winning strategy involved these three
elements:
First, to lie to the public and bring in the tax she swore before the election to never inflict.
Second, to stake everything on this tax that will drive prices higher without driving temperature lower.
Third, to please the Greens extremists who hold just one of the 150
seats in the House of Representatives, rather than appeal to the voters
who chose the other 149, not one of which campaigned for her tax.
Gosh, you mean voters don’t like this? What a surprise…
Gillard can’t even buy them off by pointing to a string of achievements.
Truth is, her record in office is of unbroken failure—the still
undecided mining tax, the still unbuilt East Timor detention centre, the
still unstopped boats, the stillborn “cash for clunkers"…
No, can’t govern and can’t even sell.

If even I could see Gillard was finished two years ago, how could Labor MPs be so blind - or, if not blind, so powerless?
This will be the great reckoning Labor must have when it starts to
rebuild. What was so wrong with the party that for the past two years it
kept marching straight to disaster under a zombie PM?
UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan notes another case of tin ear:

JULIA Gillard appears to have suffered the most ... [over] the
bipartisan plans to hit taxpayers for $20 million more in public
election funding…
For his part, the Opposition Leader appears to have escaped voters’
censure over the funding deal because he went out publicly, said the
people had spoken and listened to his Liberal colleagues who told him it
was immoral.

IN two-party terms the Liberals have a 55-45 per cent lead in Isaacs - a swing of 15.4 per cent.
JWS Research managing director John Scales said Labor was suffering in
Isaacs from “poor perceptions” of Mr Dreyfus and Ms Gillard…
“One source of Mr Dreyfus’s problem is his own poor name ID, with 53 per
cent of Isaacs voters either having not heard of him or having no view
of him.”

No wonder people in Dandenong have “no view” of Dreyfus when he actually lives in a rich suburb 20 kms away.
Here is a true representative of New Labor, a pompous QC addicted to
wagging fingers and passing oppressive laws as he prays to the gods of
global warming.
Internal Labor polling suggests Kevin Rudd could again lead Labor -
since there will be next to nobody else to either lead or be led, with
even Treasurer Wayne Swan tossed out:

UPDATE
How much is Dreyfus the symbol of New Labor? He promotes government
handouts - in this case the Schoolkids bonus - not just in English but
in Vietnamese, Albanian, Arabic, Khmer and Sinhalese.
Free money for those too unassimilated to even know English and not obliged to learn enough for even a handout.
And people wonder why the boats are full.
(Thanks to reader M.)

The script for the ACTU’s new ads raises several questions.
Why must this sad family look Greek or Italian? Does the ACTU think
Greeks and Italians are more likely to feel like losers? Or does the
ACTU think the rest of us think that way about Greeks and Italians?
Why are there still bastard bosses after years of the most pro-union
Labor Government in decades? What more does the ACTU want from this
lot?
Or are more workers doing it tough because Labor has hurt the economy?
And why, in this election year, does this script have nothing to say in Labor’s favor?

UPDATE
Newspoll has Labor on just 42 to the Coalition 58, after preferences.
It could hardly be worse for Labor, having fired all its big guns -
the Budget, the disability scheme and the Gonski “reforms”. It has also
used up its big Abbott-the-woman-hater scare, and has nothing left.
Apart from a change of leadership, but even that’s been left too late.
Changing leaders might help, though. Gillard is now being beaten badly
even in the preferred PM contest once touted hard by her media
sympathisers: 35 to Abbott’s 43.
Don’t think Gillard couldn’t now be dumped. Labor is letting itself be
led to destruction by a woman so deservedly unpopular that her approval
is just 28 per cent and disapproval 62.
Labor’s primary vote is now 30 per cent. The Coalition could almost win the election on its primary vote - now 49 per cent.
A question for any Labor MP putting up their hand for a leadership role
after the election: why should we trust you when you put your trust in
Gillard?
(Thanks to reader EndGame.)

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are to blame for global warming since the 1970s and not carbon dioxide,
according to new research from the University of Waterloo published in
the International Journal of Modern Physics B this week.
CFCs are already known to deplete ozone, but in-depth statistical
analysis now shows that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate
change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
“Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC
gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming.
But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that
convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong,” said
Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry
in Waterloo’s Faculty of Science. “In fact, the data shows that CFCs
conspiring with cosmic rays caused both the polar ozone hole and global
warming.”

Professor David Karoly is one of Australia’s leading experts on climate
change. He was a lead author on the fourth intergovernmental panel on
climate change assessment report. He’s a review editor on the fifth
assessment report…

DAVID KAROLY: ... My assessment of this is the study is completely
wrong. A number of other studies have looked at the magnitude of the
likely impact of chlorofluorocarbons on changing global temperatures.
This has been done in both the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) assessments and in a number of other studies and yes,
chlorofluorocarbons are a small contributor to global warming through
their role as a greenhouse gas. But, much, much smaller than the role of
carbon dioxide…
This research would not have survived peer review by experts in the area…
MARTIN CUDDIHY: So the prediction put forward in this study, that global
temperatures will fall for the next 50-70 years, can we put any stock
in that?
DAVID KAROLY: That prediction is wrong and is based purely on the global
warming influence of chlorofluorocarbons. The replacement chemicals for
chlorofluorocarbons are hydrofluorocarbons, which are used as
refrigerants, have already got as large a greenhouse influence as the
reductions in the chlorofluorocarbons. And, in fact, the global warming
influence of these chemicals, the hydrofluorocarbons, is already growing
more rapidly than the reductions in chlorofluorocarbons.

Here are my brief answers to your questions:
Q: “Do you have any comments regarding Dr Karoly’s criticism of your paper?”
A: From reading Dr. Karoly’s comments, unfortunately, it seems obvious
that he did not read my recent paper published in IJMPB, not even the
abstract of my paper. For example, he argues “That prediction is wrong
and is based purely on the global warming influence of
chlorofluorocarbons. The replacement chemicals for chlorofluorocarbons
are hydrofluorocarbons, which are used as refrigerants, have already got
as large a greenhouse influence as the reductions in the
chlorofluorocarbons. And, in fact, the global warming influence of these
chemicals, the hydrofluorocarbons, is already growing more rapidly than
the reductions in chlorofluorocarbons.” This criticism is quite wrong,
as the greenhouse effect of hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs) is included in
my results presented in my paper and can be easily seen even at the
abstract “Then natural and anthropogenic contributions to these
phenomena are examined in detail and separated well through in-depth
statistical analyses of comprehensive measured datasets of quantities,
including cosmic rays (CRs), total solar irradiance, sunspot number,
halogenated gases (CFCs, CCl4 and HCFCs), CO2, total O3, lower
stratospheric temperatures and global surface temperatures.”
He mentioned the IPCC models to criticize my work. But in my paper, I do
point out the key assumption in the IPCC models, namely using a
logarithm relationship to calculate the radiative force of CO2 with CO2
concentration, does not agree with the observations and is wrong.
Otherwise, there is no major difference in maths between IPCC models and
my calculations…
Since he is a professor, I believe that Dr. Karoly is a scientist; I
would wish that he would have given his criticisms in a scientific
rather than political way. Perhaps he was too busy and did not get
enough time to read my paper before he made the comments...

===

Racist red head .. - ed
===It's Not About the Nail from Jason Headley on Vimeo.
===A beautiful Golden Beryl dress ring handmade by Diamond Imports set with a matching pair of Brilliant Cut Trapezoid Diamonds on either side
===Al and owl. In England with a European eagle owl
===Because of the crystal-clear water, Flathead Lake in Montana seems shallow, but in reality is 370 feet in depth.
===
===
===
===
4 her
===
===
===
===Just a few of the diamond set ring designs and diamond engagement ring mounts available from Diamond Imports
===
===You may not do everything right, but God knows your heart. Holly
===Supporting the Barnabas fund in their campaign to recognise the plight of persecuted Christians worldwide. The petition has the support of over 15,000 people from across the country.

Just saw this on FB feed. For those who are starting out in their career--don't be easily derailed--this cartoon accurately describes the challenges--I've been there. Follow your dream and passion--go get it!

Speaking of which--time to chase! Tim died from a tornado the other day. But his legacy was substantial. - ed
==="No government should be determining what is and isn’t legitimate Islam. What they should be doing is addressing threats emanating from Islam. There is no need to study the Koran in order to understand those threats. Muslim terrorists have been willing to patiently explain that they are killing us in the name of Islam... "
===Under Sharia law she was guilty of being raped. - ed
===NT Centrelink .. standing in a queue
===
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4 her
===
===A relationship with no trust is like having a phone with no service, you just play games.
===

Friend,

It could come up as early as tomorrow, which is why we are renewing our efforts to stop the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This treaty would give the U.N. oversight of the healthcare and education choices parents with special needs kids make. It is outrageous that the government could tell you and me what is best for our children, particularly when they've never met our children or know what makes them unique.

If CRPD is ratified, it would become the law of the land under the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, would trump state laws, and could be used as precedent by state and federal judges. This treaty would give the government, acting under U.N. instructions, the ability to determine for all children with disabilities what is best for them. It also would give the U.N. discretion over decisions about how we educate our special needs kids, and could potentially eliminate parental rights for the education of children with disabilities.

We at Patriot Voices have been fighting CRPD since last year. And we had a huge victory when it was defeated in the U.S. Senate last December. But it's a new year and a new Congress so it is going to come up again for consideration.

That's why we need you to use our new digital tool to quickly and easily email your senators to tell them to VOTE NO on CRPD.

Simply click HERE and you'll be directed to our online tool which will ask you for your zip code then generate customizable letters that will go directly to your Senators. It is easy and fast to do. Already, more than 2,600 emails have been sent.

1965 – Duane Earl Pope robs the Farmers' State Bank of Big Springs, Nebraska, killing three people execution-style and severely wounding a fourth. The crime later puts Pope on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..